Announcements

Update on openSUSE Infrastructure Services (download.opensuse.org)"We’ve restored user services to download.opensuse.org and are working to restore all services and add redundancy to the system. The repository inconsistencies last night were caused by a missing configuration on the system, which caused it to redirect requests on metadata to mirrors, which are often outdated. That is now fixed. ..."

Geeko wants you!"Alberto Passalacqua has recently created a new wiki page for community-driven initiative Geeko Wants You! This page is for both 'those who are asking for help' and 'those who would like to help"

In the Community

Looking for "case studies""The marketing team is looking for case studies, user stories around openSUSE: Basically, success stories of using openSUSE. More specifically, examples of openSUSE being used in an organization in interesting ways. Using openSUSE to replace proprietary software, or using customized versions of openSUSE in business environments, educational deployments, etc."

A new direction for Linux.com"Last week’s news that the Linux Foundation has assumed control of Linux.com is good news for the Linux community. Novell is a big supporter of the foundation, and we, like other Linux advocates, are faithful readers of Linux.com’s content. The Linux Foundation dedicates itself to “fostering the growth of Linux.” That’s our goal as well. While Novell actively markets software for Linux enterprise servers and desktop computers, we also devote significant resources to our community program that sponsors open source projects and acts as a resource for the Linux community. ..."</div>

Build Service

KDE 4.2.1 Released - In openSUSE repository"If you haven’t heard by now the first bugfix release is out for the KDE 4.2 branch, here’s a snippit from kde.org [...] KDE 4.2.1 is now in the KDE4:Factory openSUSE repository."

Tips and Tricks

Ben Kevan: OpenOffice 3.1 Beta on openSUSE"Have you gotten the itch to install OpenOffice.org 3.1? Are you running openSUSE? Well you’re in luck. The openSUSE Build Service has had the OpenOffice beta packages for a bit in their UNSTABLE OpenOffice Build Service."

techradar: Quick fixes for common Linux Problems"We'll come right out and say this – Linux breaks. There, we've got that off our chests. No matter how much we might like our chosen distro, there is no denying that things can go wrong, or that it might not even be right in the first place."

Gabriel Stein: MySQL :: Basic Steps"Hurry up! Time to begin a tutorial about databases using linux and mysql. I will try to put some python code together, maybe some tools to do basic operations like create database, give some permissions, create tables and the most important: create a sql script to migrate databases to another server. lets keep in touch, I will post that script very soon."

Planet SUSE

Klaus Kämpf: D-Bus service on demand"Here is the last part of my mini-series about D-Bus, this time on D-Bus activation. In my last blog entry I talked about implementing a D-Bus service in Ruby. Running the service was done as a background daemon, started by root (or with other credentials)."

OpenSUSE vs. openSUSE"Hello everyone, I was wondering about the string in add-on-creator.po, which says "OpenSUSE" (instead of openSUSE, with a small o). I think it stands at the beginning of a sentencen or is a headline or something where you'd usually write the first latter capitalized. ..."

Lars Vogdt: Easy live upgrade from 11.0 to 11.1"Today I tried a new way to do a live upgrade with one of my machines from 11.0 to 11.1. In the end, it takes nearly 1 day, because I had to download nearly 3,2 GB software (puh!) - but for me it was just a 3 minute work :-) It turns out that the most problematic part was the new RPM-”Distribution” string for openSUSE since 11.1. As openSUSE is now completely build in the openSUSE Build Service, the Distribution string of each package switched from “SUSE LINUX Products GmbH” to “openSUSE 11.1″ - and zypper complains about this vendor switch during a live upgrade."

Klaus Kämpf: Satsolver bindings documentation available"One of the outstanding features of openSUSE is the Sat solver for package dependency resolution. Somewhat unknown to most developers, Satsolver provides bindings for the three major scripting languages: Perl, Python and Ruby. The bindings provide an easy way to learn about the Satsolver API, to explore package metadata and play what-if scenarios installing, updating and deleting packages."

Masim Sugianto: Launching Infothemes.com"After blogging for about 4 years, I’m going to addict with blog themes & templates. I’m occasionally browsing only for finding beautiful templates for my own blog or for community blog. Some are free and others are premium themes. The one which I used for Indonesian openSUSE Community website is a good example of free magazine themes. I’m using Wordpress as blog engine and used BrandFord Magazine Wordpress Themes by Michael Oeser as default template"

Michal Zugec: Object Oriented UI for YaST"After my last blog I worked on YaST (what a surprise) and didn't have any time to post anything until now. Meanwhile I read some chapters from the "Thinking in Java" book. There are some chapters about OOP in general and it brings me to idea, how it would be great in YaST. As a side effect it also means get away from ycp ;-). Thanks to UI independence I can use Python with the YaST UI."

On the Web

reddevil61: Qimo, Linux 4 Kids"WHAT is a good age to introduce children to Linux/Free Open Source Software? My children are nine, and they regularly use FOSS without actually realising it or, I suspect, caring."

Linux Foundation’s “We’re Linux” Contest Enters Final Week"SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2009 – The Linux Foundation’s user-generated “We’re Linux” video contest enters its final week today. Final submissions for the contest that began in January are due this Sunday, March 15 at midnight ET. Contest winner(s) will be revealed at the Linux Foundation’s Collaboration Summit on April 8, 2009, in San Francisco."

Kernel Log: What's new in 2.6.29 - Part 6:"This development cycle once again included many changes to the kernel's IDE subsystem, which mainly controls parallel ATA adapters (generally referred to as "IDE adapters", 1, 2, 3). Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz, who maintains this kernel area, ported a Libata driver for the CS5536 to the IDE subsystem and reintroduced the IT8172 driver for ITE's chip of the same name, which was removed in 2.6.18. Major changes were also made to several basic kernel features – one of them, for example, invalidates the "ide=nodma" kernel parameter."

Localization

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